CHAPTER X

A NOBLE KINSMAN

As the evening drew on Oliver retired, accompanied by the maid-servant, to seek a room in one of the neighbouring houses which advertised that they had these commodities at the service of those who required them; and on the latter returning to say that Mr. Quin had found a room hard by which he considered suitable, my mother and I sat over the fire discussing the past, the present, and the future.

"Something," she said, "must be done for Mr. Quin, and that at once. For his kindness we may well be indebted to him, nay, must, since he seems of so noble a nature that he would be wounded at any repayment being offered. But for the money which he has spent--that must instantly be returned."

"I doubt his taking it," I said. "He regards it as mine since he has come by it entirely through saving me from my uncle's evil designs. And, indeed, if you do but consider, dear mother, so it is."

"Nay," she said. "Nay. He would have earned the money easily enough had he been false to you and put you in that dreadful ship the _Dove_--gracious Heavens, that such a vile craft should have so fair a name!--surely we must not let him lose any of that money by being true and staunch to you."

"Give it back to him, then," I exclaimed with a laugh, "if you can persuade him to take it. Of which, however, as I said before, I doubt me much."

"Alas!" she replied, "I cannot give it back to him, but interest must be made with the Marquis to take up your cause and help you, as he seems well disposed to do now. For myself, until the villain, Robert, is defeated, I have but the hundred guineas a year left me by my uncle--a bare pittance only sufficing to pay for these rooms, the physician's account and my food."

"Shall I not see the Marquis?" I asked; "surely I should go to him and tell him all."

"Thou shalt see him soon enough," she said. "I have acquainted him with the fact of all I knew--no human creature could have guessed or thought how much more there is to tell, nor how wicked can be the heart of man, ay! even though that man be one's own flesh and blood--and also that you might soon be expected to reach London. And he has sent two or three times a week to know if you had yet arrived: doubtless he will send again to-morrow. He lives but a stone's throw from here, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on the north side."

At ten o'clock my mother told me she must go to her bed for she was tired and never sat up later, and she rang for Molly, the maid, to ask if the small room in which she kept her dresses and other apparel had been prepared for me as she desired. Hearing that it was in readiness, she told me that a good night's rest would do me good also, and prepared to retire. And now for the first time, as she rose to depart, I saw what inroads her disease had made upon her and that she who, when I first remember her, stood up a straight, erect young woman, was much bent and walked by the aid of a crutch-stick, and that one of her hands shook and quivered always.

"Yet strange it is," she said, observing my glance, "that there come moments when I am free from all suffering and affliction, when I can stand as straight as I stood at the altar on my wedding day, and when this hand is as steady as your own. Nay, I can almost will it to be so. See!" and she held it out before me and it did not quiver, while next, seizing a huge brass candelabra that stood upon the table, she lifted that and held it at arm's-length, and neither did that quiver nor was any of the hot wax from the lighted candles spilt.

"Ah! courage, mother," I said, "courage! You have but to will it and you are strong. There is enough strength in that arm, which can lift a candlestick as heavy as this, to do anything it needs. You could hold a runaway horse with it, or keep off a dog flying at your throat, or---or--" I went on with a laugh at my silly thoughts, "thrust a sword through a man's body if you desired to do so."

She was bending to kiss me for the last time that night while I spoke, but as I uttered the final words of my boyish speech she stopped and drew herself up so that she was now erect, and then, in a voice that seemed altered somewhat, she said:

"'Thrust a sword through a man's body if I desired to do so! Thrust a sword through a man's body!' My sweet, such deeds ill befit a woman. Yet there are two men in this world through whose bodies I would willingly thrust a sword if they stood before me and I had one to my hand. I mean thy uncle Robert, the false-faced, black-avised villain, and that other and most despicable liar, his friend and creature, Wolfe Considine."

Yet, even as she spoke, her hand fell powerless by her side and commenced to shake and quiver once more, when, putting her other upon my arm, she bade me Good Night and blessed and kissed me and went to her room.

I lay awake some time in my own bed thinking on what she had said, for well I knew what had prompted her to speak as she had done. I knew that, outside the evil and the wrongs that my uncle had testified to me, there was that other far greater wrong to her which no honest woman could bear; the base insinuations that Considine had uttered about his intimacy with her, insinuations partly made to gratify his own vanity, and partly, as I judged, to enable Robert St. Amande to cast doubt upon my birth. And I thought that, knowing as she did know, of these horrid villainies, it was not strange she should feel and speak so bitterly. These my musings, with some sounds of revellers passing by outside singing and hooting ribald songs--though one with a sweet voice sang the old song "Ianthe the Lovely," most bewitchingly--kept me awake, as I say, some time, but at last I slumbered in peace within my mother's shelter. Yet not without disturbance through the night either, for once on turning in my bed I heard her call to me to know if all was well, and once I heard her murmur, "The villains, oh! the villains," and still once more I heard her sob, "Oh! Gerald, Gerald, if thou would'st but have had it so!" by which I knew that she was thinking of my misguided father and not of me.

In the morning as we sat at our breakfast of chocolate and bread--with, for me, another plate of the corned beef which, my mother told me, the landlady put up in great pickling tubs when the winter was approaching and, with her family, lived upon for many months, serving out to the lodgers who wished for them fair-sized platesful at two pence each--there came a demure gentleman who asked of Molly if the young lord had yet arrived, or if news had been heard of him.

"It is the Marquis's gentleman," my mother whispered to me, "and, observe, dear one, he speaks of you as 'the young lord.'" Then, raising her voice a little, she bade Molly show him in as his lordship had arrived.

When he had entered the room and made a profound obeisance to her and another to me, he said that, since I was now in London, he had orders to carry me to the Marquis in a coach which he had outside, for he was ready to receive me, being always in his library by eleven o'clock to grant interviews to those who had business With him.

"We will attend his lordship," my mother said. "I presume, Mr. Horton, there can be no objection to my going too. And I feel well this morning; a sight of my child's dear face has benefited me much; I am quite capable of reaching the coach."

Mr. Horton replied that he knew of no reason whatever why her ladyship should not go too, and so, when my mother had put on a heavy cloak and riding hood, for the morning was cold and frosty, we set forth. But, previous to starting, I ran to the house where Oliver had got a room and, finding him sitting in a parlour eating his breakfast, I told him where we were bound.

He rejoiced to hear the news I brought him and offered his escort, saying he would go on the box of the coach; but I told him this was unnecessary, and so I left, promising him that, when I returned, I would come and fetch him and we would sally forth to see some of the sights of the town. Yet, so faithful was he, that, although he complied with my desire that he should not accompany us, I found out in the course of the morning that he followed the coach to the Marquis's house and there kept guard outside while we were within.

My kinsman's library, to which we were shown by several bowing footmen to whom Mr. Horton had consigned us, plainly testified that we were in a room which was used for the purpose from which it took its name--that it was indeed a library and was so considered. Around the apartment on great shelves were books upon books of all subjects and all dates, and of all classes of binding. Some there were bound in velvet, some in silk as well as vellum, leather and paper: some were so large that a woman could scarce have lifted them, and some so small that they would easily have fitted into a waistcoat pocket. And then, too, there were maps and charts hanging on the walls of counties and countries, and one of London alone--a marvellous thing showing all the streets and fields as well as principal buildings of this great city!--while, when I saw another stretched on a folder and designated, "A chart of all the known possessions of His Majesty's Colonies of America," you may be sure my eye sought out, and my finger traced, the spot where Virginia stood.

"Tell him everything, my dear," said my mother, "as you have told it to me, and fear nothing. He is just if stern, and, above all, hates fraud and trickery. Moreover, he has forgiven me for being of those who espoused, and still espouse, the fallen house of Stuart, and is not unfriendly to me. Also, remember, he must now be our only hope and trust on earth, so do thy best to impress him favourably with thee."

I promised her that I would indeed do all she bade me and, then, while I was turning over a most beautiful book called "Sylva, or a Discourse concerning Forest Trees," by a gentleman named Evelyn, a footman opened the door and the Marquis of Amesbury stood before us.

"Louise," he said, going up to her and taking her hand, while, at the same time, he kissed her slightly on the cheek, "I am glad to see that you can come forth again. I trust you are more at ease." Then, turning to me, he gazed down and said, "So, this is your child," and he placed his hand upon my head. As he did so, and after I had made my bow, I gazed at him and saw a tall gentleman of over sixty years of age, I should suppose, very lean and very pale, clad in a complete suit of black velvet and with but little lace at either breast or wrists. The gravity of his face was extreme, though he looked not unkind; and, truly, his manner had not been so up to now.

"Well," he said, when he had motioned me to a seat and was himself standing before us with his back to the huge fire that roared up the chimney, "well, so you claim to be the present Viscount St. Amande and my heir when it pleases God to take me. And you, Louise," turning to her, "proclaim that he is so?"

"Can a mother not know her own child, Charles, or have so hard a heart as not to wish to see him enjoy his own?"

"Humph! It hath been done. My Lady Macclesfield, though 'tis true she earned the contempt of all, ever called her son, the wretched man, Savage, an impostor; and endeavoured to work his ruin, in which desire she came at last near to success, since this very month he has stood at the Old Bailey on a charge of murder. Yet, Louise, thou art not as she was."

"Nay, God forbid! The wicked wanton! Yet I know not--there are those who have vilified me for their own wicked ends and said the worst that scoundrels can say of any woman. But, Charles, you are honest and have ever held a character for justice amongst men, and, although you loved not my uncle nor my kin, you would not think evil of me. You could not, oh! you could not!"

He looked down gravely at her, but still again with kindness in his eyes, and then he said: "No, no. Never, Louise, never. You were always too good and true, too fond of the unhappy man to have been aught but faithful. And, although I opposed his marriage with you, it was never because of your own self but because of your uncle's principles. Had he had his way, which I thank God was not permitted, he would have brought back the false-hearted, grieving Stuarts to the throne; he would have cursed his country and its laws and religion. But for you, Louise, for you, child, I never had aught of distrust, but only pity deep and infinite that you should wed with such a poor thing as my own dead kinsman and heir, this lad's father."

"God bless you," said she, seizing his hand with her well one and kissing it ere he could draw it away, "God bless you for your words as I bless Him for having raised you up to be even as a father to the fatherless--to my poor fatherless boy. And, Charles, if those whom you loved so well, your own wife and child, had not been taken from you, I would pray night and day for them as I pray for you."

He turned away and passed his hand swiftly across his eyes as she mentioned those whom he had once loved so dearly and who, as all the world knows, were both torn from him in one short week! 'Twas by one of those dreadful visitations of smallpox which carries off kings and queens impartially with their humbler subjects, as was the case fifteen or sixteen years before, when it swept away the Emperor of Germany and the Dauphin and Dauphiness of France as well as their child, and also ravaged both those great countries.

Then, turning back to us, he said:

"But now, ere anything else can be done, I must know all that has occurred since your husband's death. Something I have heard from you, Louise, and something from other sources yet there is much I cannot comprehend. Nay, more, there are some things that seem incredible. It is said he was buried by the subscription of a few friends--many of them the lowest of the low, with whom he in life wassailed and caroused--yet, how could it be?"

"He was penniless, Charles," my mother sobbed; "penniless. He had nothing."

"Penniless! Penniless! Nay. Nay. His brother was here in London at the time and I bade him let Gerald have all necessaries in reason, and I dispatched to Mr. Considine a hundred guineas for his funeral by a sure hand. I could not let the heir to my title----"

"What!" rang out my mother's voice clear and distinct, while I stared at the Marquis as though doubting whether he were bereft of his senses or I of my hearing. "What, you sent money by and to them for him? Oh! Charles, never did he receive one farthing of it."

"So I have cause to fear. And I know not what is to be done with thy brother-in-law. He seems to be a rogue of the worst degree."

But now she fixed her eyes upon him and exclaimed:

"You say so, knowing only the little that you do know, that he and his base servant, Considine--Considine," she, repeated, "Considine, the traducer of my fame whom yet, if God spares me, I will have a heavy reckoning with; you know only that they have conspired to defraud my child of his rights, nay, more, of his honest name. That they have stolen the money you sent to succour my wretched husband in his last days and to bury him as he should be buried according to his rank and fashion when he was dead. That you know, Charles, Marquis of Amesbury, kinsman of this my child, but you do not know all. Will you hear their further villainies, will you know all that they have attempted on him; will you do this, you who are powerful and great, and then will you stretch forth your right hand and crush, as you can crush, these wretches to the earth while, at the same time, you also stretch forth that hand to shelter and protect this innocent child, your heir?"

She had spoken as one inspired by her wrongs; her eyes had flashed and her frame had quivered as might have quivered that of a pythoness as she denounced some creature who had outraged her gods, but the effort had been too much for her weak frame--she could sustain it no further, and, sinking back into her chair, she was but able to gasp out in conclusion, "For his sake, Charles, for the sake of an innocent child. For his sake."

Upon which the Marquis, after trying to calm her, said gently:

"If there are other villainies to hear, I will hear them, yet it seems impossible that more can remain behind. And, Louise," continued the old man, touching her arm very gently, "dry your tears. I cannot bear to see you shed them. Nor have you need. The boy shall be righted. I promise you."

"Tell him all, Gerald; tell him all," my mother sobbed. "Oh! it would be enough to melt a heart of stone, let alone one so kind as his."

So I told the Marquis everything that has here been set down.